Visions of a Dark Lord

Assignment 1-Still Art 1
Charcoal-9 hours

For our first assignment the instructor mentioned that we should do something that we have an interest in. Since I'm a huge Star Wars fan I decided to put something together a little Vaderish.
One of my my previous Graphic Design school instructors taught you can't break the rules unless you know them. I never understood what she meant until this assignment. I purposely broke several rules with this assignment:
1. Only have one light source. The lightsaber qualifies as an object and a light source.
2. Don't have anything just hanging in midair. Darth Vader's TIE-X Advance is a perfect example of something that could be suspended in the air.
3. Have your objects interacting with each other. Even though they don't really touch the direction of Vader's stare cross with the direction of the TIE and the lightsaber - so they interact with each other dead center in the middle of the board.
Also, I wanted Vader's cape to be one of the objects. As I started my draping in the background I noticed that with a little direction it made a perfect cape. So, the background almost becomes a fourth object.
The inspiration of having the objects floating off of the page actually came from a student in my Design History class, who did the exact same thing on one of his assignments.

Attack on Echo Base

Assignment 2-Still Art 2
Charcoal and graphite pencil-14 hours

Since the last piece was all black I wanted to do a piece that was all white. I was hoping that with an all white piece it would be easier. I was wrong.

I also wanted to make a piece for myself; something that I could be proud of. My wife's brother and I often play Star Wars video games and Hoth is our favorite location. Mostly because it's easy to see and we love the wide, open spaces. There are also more options in our game on Hoth. So, when I thought 'white' this was the first picture that came to mind.

Not only did I work to capture all the finite details of the AT-AT but I worked to break some rules again. I have only 1 miniature snowspeeder and only 1 snow base. I had to draw and block in one piece at a time with all the details and such, then move them over to their second locations. So, the rule I broke is using the same piece more than once and also moving it.

Another concept to this piece is a challenge. With the cinematic scene I am challenging the viewer to see this as a still life as opposed to a cinematic movie scene.

Which do you see?

All in all I'm really pleased with it and would love to display it with my Hoth scene when we get it framed. I would also like to put this one in the state fair.

Pillow Talk

Assignment 3-The figure
Charcoal-6 hours

My wife on the phone. Typecasting, really. But I am glad she was willing to pose for me. She found out rather quickly that the posing job of a model is no easy task... even if she is just laying down and doing nothing for only 5 minutes!
After my Observational Drawing class we have both gained a deeper appreciation for the jobs of models.

The Tournament Saga: The Unforseeable Outcome

Final Project-Multiple Figures
Charcoal and pencil-34 hours
For my final I decided to do an action piece with several of my key characters from my screenplay "The Tournament Saga." The piece required 2 full figures and 1 partial. I chose 5, varying figures and wanted to have them all interacting together. I think this is a nice piece and it turned out just as I had hoped.
It was massive so I had to scan it in piece by piece.